Bin Laden 'with friends' in Pakistan
Osama bin Laden, on the run from the US led coalition against terrorism, is believed to be with ‘‘friends’’ of a Pakistani religious party leader, an Afghanistan government official said today.
Mohammad Abeel, spokesman for the Defence Ministry in Kabul, said bin Laden was believed to be with ‘‘friends’’ of Maulana Fazal-ur Rehman, a Pakistani Islamic activist in a border area of Pakistan. He did not elaborate or divulge the source of his information.
Maulana Fazal-ur Rehman is the leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, a powerful Pakistani religious party sympathetic to Afghanistan’s deposed Taliban militia. Its main support base is parts of Pakistan’s North West Frontier and Baluchistan provinces, both of which border Afghanistan.
It helped orchestrate some of the largest pro-Taliban protests in Pakistan after US air strikes began in Afghanistan in October.
Riaz Durrani, central information secretary for Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, rejected the report about bin Laden as ‘‘baseless.’’
‘‘We support the Taliban, but never had any connection with Osama bin Laden,’’ he said. ‘‘Maulana Fazal-ur Rehman is under detention for the last three months. How can he or his party do this?’’
He added: ‘‘It is part of an international conspiracy to attack Pakistan under the pretext of action against religious organisations.’’
Another well-known figure in Pakistan religious politics, Fazal ur-Rehman Khalil, is a leader of Harkat ul-Mujahedeen, which follows the same school of thought as Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam but is more militant and is fighting for Indian Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan.
His group also is connected with the Taliban. Attempts to reach him for comment were unsuccessful today, because he has been in hiding since October to avoid arrest. Harkat ul-Mujahedeen has been banned and classified by the United States as a terrorist organisation.
Last week in China, President General Pervez Musharraf said he was ‘‘reasonably sure’’ that bin Laden had not escaped to Pakistan and said there was a ‘‘great possibility’’ the al-Qaida leader was dead.
